Disease in plants results from biotic and abiotic causes. Biotic causes include fungi, viruses, insects, bacteria, and nematodes. Of these, fungi are the most frequent causative agents of disease in plants. Abiotic causes of disease in plants include extremes of temperature, water, oxygen, and soil pH, plus nutrient-element deficiencies and imbalances, excess heavy metals, and air pollution.
A host of cellular processes enables plants to defend themselves from disease caused by pathogenic agents. These processes apparently form an integrated set of resistance mechanisms that is activated by initial infection and then limits further spread of the invading pathogenic microorganism.
Subsequent to recognition of a potentially pathogenic microbe, plants can activate an array of biochemical responses. Generally, the plant responds by inducing several local responses in the cells immediately surrounding the infection site. The most common resistance response observed in both nonhost and race-specific interactions is termed the “hypersensitive response” (HR). In the hypersensitive response, cells contacted by the pathogen, and often neighboring cells, rapidly collapse and dry in a necrotic fleck. Other responses include the deposition of callose, the physical thickening of cell walls by lignification, and the synthesis of various antibiotic small molecules and proteins. Genetic factors in both the host and the pathogen determine the specificity of these local responses, which can be very effective in limiting the spread of infection.
As noted, among the causative agents of infectious disease of crop plants, the phytopathogenic fungi play the dominant role. Phytopathogenic fungi cause devastating epidemics as well as significant annual crop yield losses. Pathogenic fungi attack all of the approximately 300,000 species of flowering plants. However, a single plant species can be host to only a few fungal species, and similarly, most fungi usually have a limited host range.
The antimicrobial peptide, snakin-1 has been isolated from potato tubers and found to be active against bacterial and fungal pathogens from potato and other plant species. Snakin-1 causes aggregation of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The protein is homologous to amino acid sequences deduced from cDNAs that encode gibberellin-inducible mRNAs. The protein also shares sequence motifs with kistrin and other hemotoxic snake venoms.
Plant disease outbreaks have resulted in catastrophic crop failures that have triggered famines and caused major social change. Generally, the best strategy for plant disease control is to use resistant cultivars selected or developed by plant breeders for this purpose. However, the potential for serious crop disease epidemics persists today, as evidenced by outbreaks of the Victoria blight of oats and southern corn leaf blight. Accordingly, molecular methods are needed to supplement traditional breeding methods to protect plants from pathogen attack.